


ever on and on

by often_adamanta



Series: 12 in 12 Challenge [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Bechdel Test Pass, Established Relationship, F/M, Food, Gen, Immortality, Insecurity, Kissing, Medical Procedures, Not Beta Read, Sharing a Bed, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 21:37:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6130863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/often_adamanta/pseuds/often_adamanta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Darcy has to correct three separate people at the reception about their relationship, not younger cousin or sister, but college professor and boss and finally best friend. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Jane thinks about their surprise, the second glances they give her, and wonders.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	ever on and on

“Jane!” Darcy bellows. 

Jane sighs and slips her feet back into the uncomfortable shoes she’s going to be stuck in for at least six more hours. She gathers her gown around her as she stands and hurries into the adjoining room. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks as she comes in, and even though she’s seen it already, had helped pick it out, she feels tears prick her eyes at the sight of Darcy in her wedding dress. 

It’s only for a second, though. The glare Darcy’s leveling at one Tony Stark, standing casual in a tux and wiping his eye with a real handkerchief, ruins the image of wedded bliss. 

“You’re not allowed in here,” Jane says firmly and crosses the room to physically shove Tony out the door. 

“I didn’t want a big wedding!” Darcy, well, shrieks at him as he allows Jane to move him away. “Hell, I didn’t even want to get married!” Jane winces, hoping none of the groom’s guests had heard, although it’d be hard not to at Darcy’s current volume. Ian had nodded seriously along with Darcy’s rants about immigration forcing them to participate in a heteronormative ritual that was a patriarchal tool of subjugation, but his relatives weren’t as enlightened if their reaction to Darcy keeping her name was anything to go by.

Jane shuts the door behind her sharply, still gripping Tony’s arm, and the only reason she doesn’t kill him on the spot is that he’s smiling and immediately begins gushing about what a beautiful bride Darcy is. 

If Pepper had accepted any of Tony’s proposals, Jane thinks darkly, Darcy probably could have eloped in peace. 

“Thor!” she calls, and Thor sticks his head out of a door down the hall, expression guilty as hell. She takes a single second to hope that he’s broken something again instead of downing shots with Steve before the ceremony, but she doesn’t have time to deal with it either way. “Take him and keep him away from Darcy. If he upsets her again, I’m holding you responsible.” 

Tony sputters, but Thor nods seriously and comes to collect Tony, sweeping him down the hall until they disappear into that same room. She hears Tony giggle at whatever he finds in there, but she merely rolls her eyes and slips back through the door to Darcy. 

Jane goes over to where Darcy stands at the mirrors, staring at her reflection. “I made the bad man go away,” she says and is rewarded by Darcy smiling. “Am I going to get yelled at too if I say you look really beautiful?” 

Darcy’s smile widens. “Thanks,” she says, uncommonly quiet, looking almost shy as she adjusts the line of the skirt. “You look beautiful, too. Not as much as me, obviously, we all know who the bride is, but you’re doing alright.” 

“Thanks,” Jane says. The dark plum dress is very nice, nothing like the horror she’d imagined when she’d agreed to be Darcy’s maid of honor. 

“We’re definitely going to be the hottest people at this wedding,” Darcy says. Jane laughs and leans her head on Darcy’s shoulder. “That’s saying something with this crowd! Avengers be hot.” 

She doesn’t know, later, if it’s the wedding dress that brings things into focus, or if she had just never taken the time to look recently, to study their faces side by side in a mirror. 

Darcy is smiling and glowing and looks like a bride, but in that moment she also looks older than Jane. She had never paid attention to Darcy’s wrinkles, tiny laugh lines that frame her face, and the few shining silver strands twisting their way through the curls of her updo. 

Jane has yet to find a single gray hair.

She shakes it off, puts it out of her mind and concentrates on the wedding ceremony, which is gorgeous and thankfully short. Then Darcy has to correct three separate people at the reception about their relationship, not younger cousin or sister, but college professor and boss and finally best friend. 

Jane thinks about their surprise, the second glances they give her, and wonders.

*******

She goes to Helen Cho, because she’s gained enough sense over the years not to treat herself as a patient or experiment, and also she knows Bruce hates being the one to give bad news. 

“I’m probably just imagining things,” she says, grinning, but Helen nods seriously and draws some blood. 

“I know Bruce and SHIELD speculated about the effects of the Aether, mostly about how we had no idea what effects there might be. It’s a good idea to do a follow up for the records even if I don’t find anything.” 

Helen tracks her down the very next day. 

“You found something,” Jane says.

“I want to run a few more tests,” Helen says. Jane scowls, and Helen hesitates. “I don’t want to alarm you over nothing.” 

“I’m already alarmed,” Jane says.

Helen nods. “You know I study cell regeneration, and so obviously one of the things I look at is degeneration. As the body ages, we expect it to run down and become less efficient. Everyone is different, but it’s been quite some time since London, and your results look… identical. I want to check a number of other metabolic markers and hormones, which will give us a better idea of what’s happening, but right now it doesn’t appear that you’re growing older.” 

Jane had attempted to prepare for this moment, but the bottom still drops out of her stomach. “So the Aether is acting like the serum?”

“No,” Helen says, “We can see signs of aging in Steve. It’s very slow, and he could theoretically live two or three times as long as a typical human, but we can see it. This looks more like,” Helen frowns, thinking, “Well, more like Thor, actually. He claims to age, but it’s so slow we can’t detect it.” 

Jane can’t think about that right now. “So, more tests?” she says, and Helen nods.

When they’re done and Jane’s back in her lab, she takes a deep breath and releases it. She wishes she’d waited until Darcy was back from her honeymoon, so that she didn’t have to spend the day alone with this news.

*******

The tests come back, and Helen talks her through them. Jane mostly ignores the whole mess and starts to avoid Helen while she’s at it, flinching away from the terrible combination of pity and scientific curiosity and a hint of envy. 

Darcy comes back, tanned and relaxed and cracking jokes at whiplash speed, and Jane manages to wait a whole week before locking the lab down at three in the afternoon and pulling out a large bottle of whipped cream vodka and two shot glasses. 

They take the first shot and Darcy stares at her, more puzzled than worried. “So what’s up? Did you set my iPod on fire again?” 

Jane laughs and pours another round. They drink again. 

“It’s about London,” Jane says finally, which has come to be their reference for that crazy time with the portals and dark elves and saving the world. 

“Uh huh,” Darcy says, and this time she pours. 

“The Aether seems to have… changed me,” she manages to says as the alcohol works it’s way into her system, her cheeks flushing pink. “On a cellular level.” 

“Shit,” Darcy says, “You wanna explain that? Because it doesn’t sound good.” 

“I’m not aging,” Jane says. Darcy tilts her head as if she’s trying to puzzle out a meaning beyond the straightforward words. The sweet smell of the vodka is almost too much, and Jane wishes she’d grabbed a different bottle. “I mean, at all. Like, based on the blood tests, I will look exactly like this for the rest of your life. And then,” Jane waves a hand, “Keep going for pretty much forever.” 

Darcy’s eyes are huge in her head, because they’ve talked about Thor, who is basically immortal compared to the rest of them, and all the reasons that might suck. She grasps immediately why this is not necessarily a good thing. 

“We’re not going to end up as roomies in the old folks home,” Jane says, the tears she’s been resolutely ignoring rising up to burn in her eyes. 

“Thor was going to come visit every week and make the other ladies so jealous,” Darcy says, pitiful. 

Jane laughs and starts to cry at the same time, and Darcy rolls her chair around the lab table until they’re close enough for a hug, Jane clinging to her. She’s never been more grateful that Darcy is her best friend because she doesn’t have to explain any further. Darcy gets it. 

“Jesus,” Darcy says, “I thought you had broken up with Thor or someone had died or something, but that’s too easy for us. We really do have the weirdest lives.” 

Jane laughs through her tears. Darcy takes another shot. 

“You know, I thought you looked good,” she says, considering, “I just figured you were possessed by the spirit of science or that Thor’s jizz had restorative powers or something.” 

Her sob gets stuck in her throat, and she pulls back enough to punch Darcy in the shoulder, laughter finally starting to win out over tears. 

“Hey,” Darcy says, “It’s a viable theory! Asgardians are super strange. You should rule that out. For science. I bet Helen would offer to help.” Darcy smirks as Jane shakes her head, no, no, no, and then Darcy’s eyes go a little fuzzy. “Can you imagine? We’d make so much money if we bottled it up and sold it.” She laughs and wiggles her eyebrows. “Fountain of youth!” 

Jane punches her again. 

*******

Thor comes to get her a few hours later, even though she knows he’s supposed to be sparring with Steve and Natasha. 

Ian shows up just after him, and Darcy takes one look at him and bursts into tears, despite having been dry eyed and cracking jokes the entire time they’d been drinking. He gives Jane a look of confused terror and escorts Darcy out, arm around her waist.

She expects Thor to ask, but he just looks at her, unsteady on her feet with red, puffy eyes. Instead, he sweeps her effortlessly into his arms and carries her to her apartment. She drinks the large glass of water that he gets for her and allows him to strip off her clothes. His bearing is almost formal as he removes each article before pulling an old, soft sleep shirt over her head. 

Jane crawls into bed, tired even though it’s early, and isn’t surprised when he joins her. He holds her, warm and safe, as she falls asleep. 

It’s late when she wakes up again, dark even when she turns to the window. Her stomach growls and she has to pee like crazy, and Thor’s arms release her immediately when she moves, so he must be awake. She doesn’t look at him as she disappears into the bathroom and avoids her own eyes in the mirror. 

She sits down at the small table in the kitchen and watches him crack eggs into a large bowl, his hands steady and sure. 

“Did you know that the Aether had changed me?” Jane asks when she can’t keep the question quiet any longer.

Thor frowns thoughtfully. “You are more sensitive to magic than you were when we first met. I’ve seen you identify it in several objects you were studying before you verified it with other means. It seemed a harmless thing to me.” 

Jane blinks, because he’s right, and she hadn’t realized he’d noticed. She doesn’t want to get distracted by that, though, the way some items feel like they now carry a small charge, as if her body can conduct an entirely different type of electricity that she was resistant to before. 

“Not that,” Jane says, “I mean, me. Have you noticed any changes in me?” 

Thor shakes his head gently, hands still now as he focuses on her completely. “Nothing that I can tell.” 

Jane nods. “And you don’t find that strange?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer, “It’s been years, but I haven’t changed at all since London.”

When he catches on to what she’s hinting at, his expression for a split second is so _hopeful_ , quickly buried by concern. It takes her breath away in relief, because she hadn’t wanted to doubt him, but she couldn’t really hold him to promises he’d made when forever meant a mere 70 years, a tiny fraction of his life. 

“Cook your eggs,” she says, needing the breathing room. Also she's still hungry. 

Thor looks down at them in wonder, as if he’d completely forgotten what he’d been doing, before cracking the last three eggs in the carton to make an even dozen. He whips them with a whisk, adding cream and salt and pepper.

“If you want, we can travel to Asgard and consult the healers,” Thor says as the butter melts and sizzles in the pan. 

“Maybe. I’m not sure it’s worth antagonizing Odin,” Jane says, “They didn’t know much about the Aether last time.” She can’t sit still any longer and gets up to get them both plates and forks, turning on the coffee maker with a fond pat.

“I will deal with my father,” Thor says grimly, grip tightening on the handle of the pan enough to make it creak slightly. He lets go and examines it briefly before continuing. “But you are not ill or in pain? I feared a worse fate than gaining your presence in my life beyond your mortal years.” 

Jane pauses with the mugs in her hand, tears threatening again. 

“Jane?” Thor asks, turning off the burner and leaving the finished eggs steaming in the pan. 

The mugs click when she sets them down. “I wasn’t sure you’d want…” She can’t bring herself to speak the words aloud.

He kisses her, sweeping her up in what Darcy calls a movie star kiss. They part, and his eyes are kind and understanding as he looks at her and says, fiercely, “Jane Foster. I will love you all the days of your life, no matter how short or long the number.”

He kisses her again, as if to punctuate the point, and then releases her gently, going back to the stove to scoop the eggs onto the waiting plates. She braces herself on the counter until her knees feel more stable. The machine behind her beeps and she pours the coffee, carrying the mugs over to sit by Thor as he happily tucks into his food. 

“I love you, too,” Jane says, and he smiles. “Without you, this would be… unthinkable. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face it without you.” 

Thor swallows his bite and tangles their feet together below the table. “You don’t have to.” 

*******

“Have you given any more thought to our discussion?” Thor asks several days later as he systematically goes through her kitchen. He’s constantly eating all of something and then putting the container back. The number of times Darcy has been confronted with empty Poptart boxes alone while scrounging for snacks is ridiculous. He rattles a box of cereal and sighs in dismay when it turned out to be gone, setting it on the counter and moving on to the fridge. 

He means whether to go to Asgard, and if she wants to tell people besides Helen so they figure out exactly what’s going on. That is not what Jane has been thinking about.

“I want to have kids,” Jane blurts out and then flinches when Thor freezes where he had leaned into the open refrigerator door. “Sorry, that was, uh,” she says as Thor straightens and turns toward her, a frustratingly blank expression on his face. “Let’s just forget I said anything.” 

“No,” Thor says, shutting the door and sitting down at the table next to her. “I asked, and I prefer your honestly, although I must admit I didn’t anticipate the answer.” 

“Sorry,” she says again, cringing, but Thor takes her hand and keeps her from pulling too far away. 

“Don’t be,” he says, “I was unaware that you wanted children.” 

“I didn’t,” she says and sighs at his confusion, considering how to explain. She tries, “I thought I had to chose.” She pauses and lifts her chin. “No, I did have to choose. Science, my work, pursuing my dream; it didn’t leave me with time to be a mom. I chose it, and it was the right decision for me. I’m happy, and I’d do it again, but…” 

Thor waits patiently.

“When I started to think of all the long years we probably have ahead, more human lifetimes than I can really wrap my head around, I was struck by the fact that I have time to do anything. Live any life I want. I have time for it now, all of it, and that means I don’t have to choose.

“I don’t mean any time soon,” she says quickly when she looks up to find Thor beaming, “My work is important. I’m about five years out from a bridge that’s stable enough to allow travel, and technology is advancing so rapidly. Honestly, our understanding of the universe has shifted dramatically in just the last decade.” 

She stops herself there to keep from getting off track and looks up to find Thor’s smile undimmed. 

Jane grins back, weak with the enormity of what she’s saying. “But we have enough time now, you know?” 

“I do,” Thor assures her, lifting her hand and pressing a kiss to her palm.

**Author's Note:**

> The working title for this was Immortan Jane. Y'all, I am fucking hilarious.


End file.
